


What Makes a Monster a Man, What Makes a Man a Monster

by vanessasketch



Category: Incredible Hulk (2008), Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abuse, Character Death, Child Abuse, Cracksmash, F/M, Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 20,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanessasketch/pseuds/vanessasketch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles from the 30 day drabble challenge on tumblr, focusing on Bruce Banner and the Hulk.</p><p>Based on a combination of MCU, comics, and Cracksmash RP headcanon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

Overhead the sky was deep blue and clear, ahead there stretched a long dirt road lined with trees on one side and an empty field on the other. There was a warm breeze that carried the scent of the dirt and grass along with it; the only noise was the sputtering idling of the old scooter he had borrowed. Been given.

They both knew he never would bring it back. The same with the clothes—which aside from the shoes being half a size too small—were surprisingly close to what he usually wore. The old security guard hadn’t minded, in fact taking the entire event in such an easy unimpressed way that Bruce hadn’t been sure what to do.

“I don’t think I’ll…be back,” he’d said when the security guard had motioned at the old scooter like a game show host would a prize up for grabs.

The security guard shrugged, his arm still open towards the scooter (or was it a motorcycle? Bruce wasn’t technical when it came to vehicles). “Didn’t figure you would. But you need a way to get where you’re going, don’t you, son?”

Bruce had tugged at the collar of his borrowed (and never to be returned) shirt, letting the silence stretch between them for a few seconds. “Thanks,” he finally said, climbing onto the scooter with the careful movements of someone touching what didn’t belong to them.

“No problem,” the old guard smiled, patting on the handlebars of the scooter for the last time. Sunshine gleamed off of its tarnished metal handles. “Do you know how to get where you’re going from here?”

Now, see, that was the question. That was the reason why Bruce had spent the last ten minutes idling on an isolated road, vaguely aware of the beautiful day that surrounded him and the nagging feeling that it could very well be the last.

A familiar heaviness in his stomach stirred, twisted and pounded outward, and in the side view mirror of this old scooter he could see the snarling green face of everything he hated staring back at him. At first he had only been impulses, chemical reactions, feelings…now Bruce could almost hear the words forming in that deep rumbling voice that if you strained you could just hear his own in it. That frightened him as well.

_GO. FREE._

That was the first impulse. With the horizon stretched in front of him, Bruce could drive until out of gas, walk until the heels of his shoes fell off, and get himself to the farthest corner of the world where maybe they would finally stop looking for him. It wasn’t freedom, that was a damn dream of a man who died over six years ago, but at least alone he could keep people from dying at his hand. It wasn’t peace, but it was as close as he would ever achieve.

“But I’m alive,” Bruce said aloud, and the green face in the mirror huffed and glared with a knowing stare that was all too familiar.

It had been a sickening thought to believe that his monster—the violent furious green thing that lived in him— was something he should be _grateful_ for, that there was a purpose for him other than destruction, killing, the complete ruination of not just Bruce’s life but the ones he ended and every one connected to them. To him the Other Guy had been an uncontrollable force of nature, the culmination of every horrible impulse overcharged and let loose on a world that would never be prepared for rage without any barriers. The thought that he had been saved by this monster for a purpose was, heh, the kind of thing that would make him angry.

“But I’m alive,” he repeated.

Alive, and with the knowledge of where it could all end. There would be no running from that, no place to hide from something that encompassing.

Bruce had hated the idea that the Other Guy had saved him for a reason, kept him alive for a reason, but maybe…it was worth deciding what the reason was himself. After all, he had aimed when he fell…hadn’t he? Hadn’t _he_?

The green face in the mirror growled, his lips curling in what approached a smile but fell closer to a threatening smirk.

_GO?_

“Go,” he echoed, revving the engine. A trail of dirt kicked up behind the old scooter as it sped down the street toward the main thoroughfare, the rumbling beneath his seat matching the shaking green weight that lived underneath his skin. He was a monster, but one who was choosing a purpose. His logical mind found a sense of peace in that, in the idea that whatever the outcome he would have no chance to run.

It could have been an end, but it was in truth a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble was written before I was aware of the extended deleted scene with the security guard. They both end up making the same point so this is a bit moot now, I guess.


	2. Accusation

The words had followed Bruce for as long as he could remember, accompanied by his whole world turning red. Pleading in a small voice that he would be good had never worked; his goodness would be imparted to him forcefully. Without it, he was nothing more than those words, a twisted little thing that didn’t deserve to live. The worst was when he tried to fight it, shouted in a panicked voice that he was not those words—he wasn’t!—and the world would explode into pain. Because he was wrong and this was how he would learn that.

Even years after the words followed him, they followed him through the corridors of his high school and into the cafeteria where he had tried to do what he thought was good. Taking a stand was what good people did, not standing by and letting things slide; he was showing them again that he wasn‘t those words. But there were many of them, and one of him, and ten minutes in the parking lot resulted in a week in the hospital. Broken nose, fractured ribs, a concussion. He had thought he’d proved a point, that it had been worth it, but his return had only come with the same words. Good couldn’t come from within him; he wasn’t capable of it.

_You little monster._

_You freak._

_Monster._

It took the accident for him to grasp how right they had been all along.


	3. Restless

Confinement was a fear of the Weak One; whether trapped within the four walls of uniformed men with sharp shiny objects for prodding or within the nebulous thing called the mind. There was more to it than that, with the Weak One there always was. Long words to explain some stupid emotion, too much talk, too much thinking. He thought he understood what prison was, what being out of control of your own body meant, but he hadn’t spent months on end without a single chance to wiggle so much as a pinky toe.

So, he stretched—in thought at least—and shifted; the image that came to mind was a lion pacing. He pushed and shoved until he gained sight; a stupid but familiar face would always stare back at him. The need to get out, to act because there was so much wrong with everything, was overwhelming. Even the Weak One would sometimes agree, sometimes _want_ to let him do what he did because people were hurting people and he wanted to hurt them back. His pace would pick up, his fists would clench. Then the stupid face in the mirror would frown back at him and he would feel the walls become solid, the world too far away again.

 _No_ , he could always hear the Weak One thinking, images of fire, screams, and blood appearing. How someone so small and so weak could hold him in confused him. Frustrated him.

He would return to pacing, a ponderous thudding feeling; he knew the Weak One felt that and gained a small measure of brutal pride in knowing his restlessness could not be ignored completely. He would get out again, the Weak One deep down wanted to strike back as he did. As stupid and over thinking as he was, the Weak One was angry too, wanted the world to be better and hated that it wasn’t. There was always pain, always that bright red thud, and he would be needed because the Weak One could never fight back. Only him.

He kept pacing. The time would come and then the Weak One would know confinement as he did.


	4. Snowflake

Everything was grey and white; soft heavy snowflakes fell onto the boy’s small face as he laid on his back, staring unseeing into the vast sky. His glasses sat uncomfortably askew. There were children’s shouts somewhere nearby, happy and excited. Laughter, as well. There was always laughter.

Moving hadn’t been an option, but he wasn’t sure why. There was pain, dull and throbbing somewhere, but any impulse to rise to his feet, to stand and go anywhere else, was weak. An adult had appeared into his field of vision some minutes before, asking if he was alright. The little boy had told him “no” in a soft voice, and the adult had disappeared from sight. He hadn’t returned.

A snowflake fell onto his glasses and he made no effort to wipe it away. There were more happy shouts unseen but close, and the slightest crunch of snow as it shifted underneath the boy’s meager weight. As he breathed out the cold air he could see the gentle puffs in front of him, and felt as the snow beneath him seeped through his clothes, becoming freezing wetness.

Still, no one approached.

Everything was grey and white; soft heavy snowflakes fell onto the man’s face as he laid on his back, eyes blinking and struggling back to a form of consciousness. He had no glasses now, they had been broken. There were no shouts or cries of joy, only the creaking of snow on the tallest tree branches and the usual chattering of local wildlife. Despite that, he could still hear the laughter.

Moving was agony. A shaking, groaning frigid action, but remaining on the snow covered ground, with little more than a tattered stretched out pair of pants, was not an option. There was pain everywhere, every muscle singing a chorus of _“we did something wrong now pay for it”_ and any strength that had come before was gone now. Rising to his feet took several failed tries, his feet protesting against the frozen snow covered ground, his body telling him it had no interest in any more movement. But no, staying was not an option.

A snowflake fell into his eye as he made it to his feet and he blinked it away. The snow fell silently in this wrecked clearing, trees snapped and branches broken into shapes that resembled giant toothpicks. His unsure steps crunched and his feet protested the cold. What were normal shakes became unbearable shivering against the bitter air. Every bit of him was wet, every inch of him cold.

The little boy remained on the frozen ground, not helped and unheeded as the world had fun right in front of him. The man he became stumbled away, having learned long ago there would be no one to help you up.


	5. Haze

Once he had described being the Other Guy like induced hallucinations coupled with a liter of acid poured into your brain; a terribly painful surreal experience. Rage was the only thing he could ever remember with perfect clarity, an all encompassing green weight that struck back at the world with all of the pain and anger he was capable of. Shattered pieces of memory would come back to him later, out of focus as if viewed through a smudged lense. At times he would see something, something that to anyone else would be inconsequential, and a sharp memory would stab into his mind losing all sense of place and time, and sending him stumbling onto the floor. It would be stuck there after that, an unfocused image of the horrible things he had done seared into his mind.

Bruce groaned and winced, the most prominent hazy images in his mind of punching an impossibly large flying…space whale? and a thud of green colliding with red and gold. His entire body ached right down to the bone, muscles you would never use even in the toughest workout felt sore. The tremors would come in another minute, an all over coldness that happened no matter the outside temperature, but for now it was just unbelievable soreness, a heaviness that he wanted to spend another day sleeping off—

“Banner, hey,” came a voice somewhere near by, “you back with us?” It was somewhat familiar, with a tone that suggested he wouldn’t be opening his eyes to a cage or a retinue of soldiers aiming ultimately useless weaponry at him.

Another pained wince and a cracking roll of his shoulders, and Bruce forced himself awake, blinking against the brightness of a fading late spring sun reflecting from a shining broken floor while it simultaneously streamed through empty holes where glass windows once stood. The cracked shards around the frame glittered in the late afternoon light. He had been laid down on a dusty leather sofa, a dark piece of furniture that reeked of plaster. A soft breeze rolled in through the broken windows, and as Bruce regarded the view he realized he had to be in a skyscraper. Stark Tower?

He shifted his gaze towards the voice. Yeah there was Tony Stark, sitting on the matching sofa opposite him, dirty, bleeding, and unarmored, wearing a look that appeared somewhere between exhaustion and self satisfaction.

Stark relayed to him the highlights of the fight…battle…Bruce didn’t have the mind to concentrate on the semantics, but had managed to push himself into a sitting position despite the protests of his aching body. In all honesty, Bruce thought Stark looked how he felt, but when pressed about it, he shrugged it off. “Just some dents; all in a day’s work of avenging the world,” Stark said, going back into the recount of the fight. Bruce was barely able to process all of it except “but I can top Thor‘s Chrysler Building trick, I rode a nuke right through the portal to their home sweet now-blown-up-home!” That one had snapped Bruce’s sluggish mind to attention, and he stared at Stark for a minute, noticing the way his eyes were just a bit too unfocused. A roar echoed in his mind, harsh and bestial yet very much his own, and the image of green, red and gold flashed for a brief moment. He shook his head, looking back over the wreckage of the penthouse, a place he assumed cost more to build than he had made in his entire lifetime.

“I know, I know, this place’s a mess,” Stark said, waving at the broken floor, “but that indentation there? I’m thinking of bronzing it and putting up a plaque. Maybe I’ll call it _‘Puny God in Repose.’_ ” He paused. “You seriously don‘t remember any of that?”

“I…no. Sort of?” The sight of the broken floor, the vague human shape it was in, brought a feeling of savage satisfaction. There was a sensation of slamming, a movement repeated over and over and—and he almost could remember. “But…why are we here? Shouldn‘t you be getting—” Bruce flopped his hand in Stark’s direction, trying to indicate all the cuts and dirt. “—help?”

“Got it handled,” he replied, turning his gaze out towards the cityscape, the sunlight still glittering against all that broken glass.

They fell silent, and again Bruce tried to read the look on the other man’s face. Exhaustion was unmistakable, and that slow distant movement that came with pain and injury, but there was something else there as well. Or wasn’t there. Fear. That careful worried stare and deliberate movements that anyone who had spent time with him and his monster should have had. On the Helicarrier Bruce had thought it was recklessness and incomprehension of what he truly was, but now? “Stark, why are we _here_?”

His eyes remained staring out into the city. There was noise out there, it was New York City there was always noise, but it was strange. Subdued and almost foreign to what it should be. “Look, everyone had some post-battle business to take care of before coming back here, but the Other Guy wasn’t into the idea of joining them.” The side of his mouth stretched into an amused smirk. “And who’s gonna to say no to him, right? So, I stuck around. You know, he’s a terrible conversationalist compared to you.”

There wasn’t even an inkling of memory for that, not a single blurred flash, but Bruce’s mind tried to supply a made up image of his giant green monster standing in this broken room, grunting in failed conversation with Tony Stark. Stark, who at some point had thought it safe enough to remove his armor. Bruce opened his mouth, wanting to ask why, _why_ he did it, why they _let_ him, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Hey, you had just saved my life,” Stark added, smiling, and that look of smug satisfaction was there. Bruce‘s mouth continued to hang open and he stared, uncomprehending. “The Other Guy wouldn’t go through all that trouble just to flatten me into a newly minted Iron Man collector coin. So, like I said, who was gonna argue with him taking five here with some company?” Stark’s smile fell, taking on what looked more like a grimace. “I wasn’t awake for it, actually. The life saving part.”

“The nuke through the portal,” Bruce said in a quiet voice.

Stark nodded. “Yeah, it sounds thrilling and awesome but the losing consciousness and plummeting back to earth? Much less so. Thor and Steve saw, though. Said you caught me right out of the air. Then you yelled at me, which by the way, is a terrible wake up call.”

A crunch of glass and metal echoed in his mind, a slam against a building not strong enough to hold him but enough to slow his descent. The red and gold, now a recognizable helmet with its eyes dark. It felt more solid now, as if he could almost recall it as his own memory, an active participant instead of a prisoner forced to watch through mental restraints while his body was used by a monster.

“Guess we found out,” Stark went on, the satisfaction creeping back into his smile. There was gratefulness in there as well, a thank you that came through without the words themselves needing to be spoken. “And I like it. A lot. How about you, big guy?”

When faced with that long stretch of dirt road, Bruce had hated the thought the Other Guy had saved his life for any reason. One fight in Harlem didn‘t make up for the death and pain he had caused all those years, and he didn‘t think for one second saving Betty then had made up for what he had done to her. What he was, who he was, hadn‘t had a purpose. It was blind rage, unmitigated destruction, the ultimate violent temper tantrum. And yet…he had chosen to come anyway. Because even if there wasn‘t a true reason, he wanted to make one, wanted to believe those last seconds before landing in that lonely warehouse were pointing at something important. There was enough of Bruce who wanted to believe he, his monster, could be better.

And the whole time Stark seemed to damn well know it. Expected it. “You knew I would show up.” It wasn’t a question, though Bruce could not bring himself to ask just how he knew.

“Genius, remember?” he replied, rising from his seat. His movements were heavy, betraying how tired he had to feel, but they were sure. Stark inclined his head towards the interior of the ruined tower. “Now, let’s see if we can scrounge you up some less tattered pants and a shirt or something. We’ve damn well earned some victory shawarma.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks…Tony.” As Bruce forced himself to his feet, stifling a groan into a silent grimace, he realized that for once he might not dread remembering. That maybe this time it would come without so much pain.


	6. Flame

Blue, orange and golden; the flame wavered, dancing and undulating.

“Happy Birthday, Betty!” the voices cheered, followed by claps and laughter. Her entire normally bright living room was dark save for this small light. Colorful streamers hanged from every place they could be put while balloons wafted against the ceiling.

They had made her favorite cake together, Bruce and Marlo. What that meant was Bruce did most of the work while Marlo supervised, which amounted to measuring and pouring the ingredients and then providing a color commentary. They laughed (and while Bruce didn’t know her that well, he found he liked Marlo; she had an easy confidence and a sense of humor) and he managed to spill only a little of the cake batter. It had been Marlo’s idea to throw Betty a party, but she had latched onto Bruce’s offer to make her a cake, insisting that they did it together. “You’re a scientist!” she had declared, “How do I know you’re not going to get confused and make some inedible chemical compound?” He got the impression she had wanted to make sure that it was up to her standards, a surprise fit to be given to her best friend. That might have been another reason he liked Marlo.

Betty, when face to face with the cake, grinned from ear to ear. Her eyes shone, reflecting the warm gold from the candlelight. Her cheeks flushed just a little pink as everyone sang to her and encouraged her to blow out the candles. No one made mention of wishes, they were a tradition that ended sometime in the teenage years (at least that’s what Bruce thought, he had stopped after age eight), but the thought lingered. Betty took a deep breath and blew, her cheeks puffing out, and every candle’s flame extinguished in a few brief seconds. There were more cheers, more applause.

“You two didn’t have to do this,” she said, kissing Bruce on the cheek, “but I’m really happy you did.”

“Honestly,” he replied, his smile small and shy in the face of such a public display of affection, “you‘re worth it, Betty.”

Blue, orange and golden; the flame wavers, crackles and roars.

Everything is the color of fire now, everything is burning heat; it singes and radiates like waves heavy enough to have actual weight.

He has shielded her because she is important. He knows her name is Betty and that she is—( _worth it_ )—not afraid. Everyone else is afraid but she wasn‘t. When she looked at him, it was with recognition, as if she knew him right down to his weak core. So he protects her when the helicopter crashes, because there is nothing in the world stronger than he is, and she is—

In his arms, eyes closed. Hurt. Dirt smeared across her face. There is an overwhelming surge of familiarity, a flash that he has seen her like this before. That he also knows her right down to her brave core, that he has for the longest time, and all that only makes the anger greater. It sits and twists in his stomach as his jaw clenches and he bears his teeth. He growls at the old man through the flames, a man he hates almost more than anyone else. It is the old man who chases him, who sends the soldiers with guns, with the machines that slam at his ears, who hunts him like an animal. It is his helicopter that has hurt them, it is his fire that surrounds them, the lousy terrible old man.

Rain begins to fall, but the fire does not go out. It sizzles and crackles, and Betty becomes tinged gold in its reflective light. He spares one final snarl at the old man, he wants him to know this is his fault. He wants him to know that if she was not in his hands he would grab him and slam him into the rain soaked ground. But Betty is—( _worth it_ )—hurt, and she is in his arms.

With a lumbering movement he turns, and Betty’s limp form sways with him as he does. Under the cover of rain and flames he disappears with her, taking her some place away from here. Some place that is empty. Some place that does not burn with orange and gold.


	7. Formal

A distance between himself and the world had to be maintained, both in the physical and mental sense. As a doctor—even an unlicensed medical one—it was easy enough to gain that. Touch only for treatment, polite discussion only about said treatment. It never stopped what sat beneath his skin, that lead green weight he needed to keep close (because when he didn’t feel him, didn’t think about him, he couldn’t see him coming until it was usually too late), but the distance made it manageable. He thought of it as emotional multitasking; a warm exterior (and he wanted to believe it was honest as well, but he considered himself a sarcastic asshole by and large) that covered all of the rage bubbling underneath. His patients never knew. They sat on their beds, or rickety kitchen tables, as he worked, seeing only what needed to be seen: the strange doctor who was willing to help, when payment wasn’t an option bartering was, who would leave as quietly as he arrived.

For the people who _knew_ , he could measure the distance with words and yard sticks. When contact was unavoidable, it was a formal handshake, or done with proper bracing ahead of time. Sentences were chosen with care, facial expressions were kept polite, everyone sneaking around the proverbial green elephant in the room. Behind every precise movement, every planned out conversation, Bruce could see the fear behind it. That flicker beyond that called to attention the truth of the matter that he was _not_ a man, he hadn’t been one for years (an impulse in him said he _never_ had), he was a skin shell for a violent grenade.

_A mindless beast, makes play he’s still a man._

It wasn’t until the aftermath of the General’s attack, with Natasha declaring she was going to hug him, followed not a minute after by Steve picking both of them up into some sort of super soldier bear hug, that Bruce considered how much of the formal distance when it came to the Avengers could be of his own doing.

And the thought of these people— _friends_ , a word he was coming to verbalize—would close that distance, that they might still do it with cautious forethought out of respect for him, see him as Bruce and not Monster-Beneath-Bruce‘s-Face…It was something he wasn’t quite sure what to do with, but had an urge to protect even when the world came down around them.


	8. Companion

Dogs were in a lot of ways better than people. They loved with all of their heart in an uncomplicated way that he would never be capable of. It could only take a look and a tilt of the head for them to speak to you, to tell you of how glad they were just to be there with you. You fed them, you gave them a place to live, a calm voice to listen to, and in return they gave you everything.

It was that thought that scared him at first when Bruce got the dog. This was another life, one that deserved safety and care, and he was the opposite of that. He was dangerous, driven by the belief that he could reverse this mistake, rid himself of the monster (if not the guilt, never that) that lurked underneath his skin. If there was anyone a dog should run away from, it was him.

He didn’t. The dog, a quiet perky eared dog with sweet brown eyes, had followed Bruce home from the bottling plant for a week. He had been part of a roving gang of homeless dogs, there were always a few that roamed the streets (and there was a definite sympathy there, an animal without a home), who Bruce had shared lunch with early that week. Those brown eyes had been staring at him, his tail wiggling just at the tip, and Bruce hadn’t given it any thought before he was throwing bits of sandwich to him. When his shift was over, his muscles drained and heavy and his mind anxious only for solutions to the big green problem, the dog was there at the gate. His brown eyes stared, the tip of his tail swishing back and forth, and when Bruce walked he kept up an easy pace.

By the end of that week the dog was sleeping in his flat. First near the front door and by the second week closer to Bruce’s bed.

And the dog, who he had come to call Cam, or Loudmouth when he was feeling funny, had ended up being just what he needed. A friend, one that he never had to worry was hiding anything from him nor he having to hide from him. A calming influence who could always sense when he was unbalance, upset, on the verge of his control breaking over the edge letting loose a riptide of green pain. Cam was there, sitting with him, on the uneven stone steps as he cooked or begging in front of him as he ate his dinner. With him there the silence was companionable, the isolation bearable. With him this run down one room flat became a place that while he wanted to leave, he didn’t mind staying in quite so much.


	9. Move

_Breathe._

_In, through the mouth. Fill the lungs. Out, through the nose. Let all of it out._

_Again. And again. Keep the breath steady, do not let it become short. Do not let it quicken._

He took the corners tightly, heading downhill, hoping it would increase his lead. His feet pounded against the pavement while the narrow alleys made him feel trapped before they had even caught him. The training he had taken while he was here he hoped would give him a better chance. When it came down to it, he was a novice, an overgrown nerd forced to be faster and stronger than trained military. It was absurd to think about, especially as he hopped down the cracked stone stairway, down the alley, and into a yard full of laundry (his hat caught and lost on a bright cream sheet).

_A gap into the alley below. Leap. Bend your knees on landing, use energy to push off._

A thud and a scream behind him told Bruce that one of the soldiers did not mind the gap and tumbled down into the rain slicked alley below them. Ahead of him rooftops stretched, stacked on top of each other. Bricks and concrete and alcoves that became a blur as he ran ahead, leaping over waist high walls and the small empty spaces between the buildings. Around him the air was still heavy and wet, the world smelling of rain soaked pavement and grass even up here. His lungs burned, his legs burned, and as he leaped the tiny sound of metal against brick told him he had been just fast enough (not lucky, never that) to avoid a tranquilizer dart.

_Bend knees, keep going. Move. Breathe!_

Bruce landed harder into the little alley below, careening into the building in front of him. A small beep rang out, and his breath hitched, and that made it worse. It was getting close, the tightness within him becoming green and tangible. He took another breath and continued running, weaving between a wrought iron gate, a soldier hot on his heels. Bruce squeezed through and stumbled forward, slamming himself into a case of glass bottle sodas; the beeping returned louder and more frequent, the glass bottles clanked against each other. The soldier was out of sight, a few precious seconds to stave off the worst possible thing.

_Breathe. In, mouth, out, nose. Control center, stomach movement. In, out._

People walked by him, their conversations drowned out by the roaring in his ears and the beeping of his watch. A tight panicked thought that this was hopeless, that there was no way he could outrun them forever, that at best he was looking at unconsciousness and at worst bodies and memory loss and pain, coiled around his chest. He clutched at his chest, as if he could hold the thought in along with everything else. Bruce took another deep breath in, the beeping slowed. The soldier noticed him and his eyes went wide.

_Move._

Bruce ran again, the sound of metal on metal and a spark in his peripheral vision told him he had missed another tranquilizer. He darted down another alley, his body thudding against the stone building and sending him off again like a pinball. It was darker now, the clouds above still threatening rain and the night stretching out ahead. Shadows loomed long, deep and inky as Bruce stumbled out into the cobblestone road. There was breathing room here, but fewer places to hide, fewer obstacles to throw in their way.

A black van drove up (too unusual in make to be local, it was obvious by a glance) and stopped, the man Bruce both feared and hated in equal measure, second only to one other, stepping out. His mind screamed to run, never stop running, but his body became frozen in place. The General leveled a gaze at Bruce, his mustache twitched, bristling into a smirk that held all of the threat in the world with it. There was the future in that stare, a certainty that it never mattered how far Bruce went, he would find him. Inside him held the General’s best weapon and he would never be willing to part with that.

Bruce felt sick, felt his throat tighten and the bile rise within him. To the General, to the world, Bruce would never be a man unless he rid himself of this monstrous green violent thing in him. It was an uncontrollable force that no one had the ability to tame, no one had the right to point at their enemies and shout “Kill them.” In the General’s hands there was more death, countless deaths, because he could not understand what Bruce had become. Didn’t care to. In those eyes was the proprietary stare of reclaiming a _thing_ that he believed was his, like picking up his spare gun.

The moment stretched as they stared at each other and all that could be heard in Bruce’s head was the roaring again. His body found itself, taking over, and Bruce could feel his limbs again.

_Move._

And the world moved in double time again as Bruce turned and ran as far away from the frightening inevitability as he could. If he could run just a little faster, just a little longer, maybe he could get the moments he needed to cure himself.

And no longer be an old man‘s weapon.


	10. Silver

A bright room, sweet, and soft around all the edges. Sunlight streams and the thin curtains flutter from a warm breeze. Her smile is soft too, saying safe and home without a word. Her touch he cannot feel, all he feels is airy softness, but there is an echo of it; a memory of what it had been.

She moves and the world moves with her. It is still bright, but now too bright, and not soft around the edges but hazy and green. Her face is still what he sees but now there is red and her eyes are closed, unmoving. There is a certainty that he knows it is his fault. A roar echoes among the wreckage, scattered papers, jagged edges of wooden desks, sparking equipment.

When he lumbers forward he finds that he cannot, hands are holding him back. He struggles and pushes but they refuse to budge; he realizes soon that they are not hands and he is not standing. Above him a light again shines too bright and the room is devoid of color. He is strapped to a table; strange eyes loom above him, their faces hidden behind surgical masks. Sharp silver catches in the painfully bright light, glinting with ruthless intent. His entire body tenses, the eyes look upon him like a bug under the microscope. Words are spoken and while they sound like they are coming from beneath the ocean the their message comes through clear: there is no him, there is only _it_. It will be cut, it will be pulled and tugged, clinical shining instruments sinking into the deepest depths of him until they are able to grasp the green unfathomable thing within. It is not the first time he has felt this small nor this helpless.

More sharp instruments appear in his vision, and the old man he hates, staring at him in the most cold impersonal way any human could. He feels himself struggle again, his chest rising while his wrists will not budge. It doesn’t matter he isn’t making any progress, his entire body screams at him to not let the old man win, never let him win. Struggle, fight back, for the love of God fight back—

There was a shuddering twitch, the kind that wracked every limb in a way that looked like you had stuck your finger in an electrical socket, and Bruce woke. It was dark, faint light coming from a pale pearl moon, and there was a disorienting sense that he had no idea where he was. He was curled on his side, there was the scent of painted wood and dirt, and the uneven feeling that he was on slats…a bench. Bruce pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling his backpack that he had been using as a pillow into his lap and clutching it close.

In the distance a car horn honked and a single dog barked, the sounds echoing hollow. His feet met the gravel ground with a soft crunch and the streetlamps from the edge of the park flickered and failed, leaving him in a greater darkness.

Bruce held onto the backpack. It was hard inside, filled with everything important to him, and the canvas it was made of reeked and was fraying but it was familiar. All he could see, all he could feel, was the pointed silver cutting into him and the green that fought against it; a nightmare too reoccurring to fade.


	11. Prepared

_Luck favors the prepared._

No, that wasn’t accurate. Luck, operating under the assumption that it existed, was never moved by anything you could do. It didn’t care. It was an emotionless force that operated on its own; that tiny little thing that made the floorboard squeak at the wrong moment or put you in the right place at the right time. What being prepared got you was results, often kind you were after.

Or tea.

For the first few weeks Bruce did not know how to act around Natasha. Was he supposed to default to Agent Romanoff, or does being a teammate allow them to be on a first name basis? Should he apologize again? It was unprecedented to continue working with someone that you…almost killed. His stomach twisted; apologies for it would never really be enough. It never was.

The matter of SHIELD was there as well, who Bruce could not say he trusted. All he could say was that when it came between them or the military, he would go with them. While SHIELD had built a cage that could send him plummeting to the earth, at least they hadn’t tried to force him in it. Yet. It was impossible to tell what they really wanted, despite bringing all the Avengers together to save the world. He sometimes got the feeling SHIELD could inadvertently cause just as many problems as they wanted to solve, depending on what their goal was that week.

It was the same general feeling he got with Natasha at first; every movement was efficient and precise, she had an unerringly excellent ability to gauge people, and coated that with a dry sense of humor that some people could miss if they weren’t paying attention. She acted with purpose, even if that purpose was hidden.

“I still prefer stoves. Maybe for the simplicity, I don‘t know.” The electric kettle in front of him shined in the florescent light of his lab and Bruce‘s mind wandered back to other places where there were no kettles, just pans to boil water, and the light was dim.

Natasha watched him with a small smile on her face, and his mind came back to the present with the unspoken question of _‘why would you want to spend time in here with me?’_ That was a question that came up with everyone, including Tony who Bruce at least understood liked having someone to talk shop with. Even without the green grenade lurking beneath his skin Bruce found it difficult to wrap his head around the idea that people would spend time with him just for the sake of company. “This equipment does make it look more complicated, but it hasn’t once burned the leaves,” she said.

Bruce pulled out two mugs, setting them out on the desk in front of Natasha. “While it’s great to be able to have a really good cup of tea for once, my pickiness about everything died around the time I had to stretch out a single tea bag for a week.”

“You won’t be doing any of that while I’m around, doc,” she replied, reaching into her purse and taking out two tea packets and handing them both to him.

He took the packets, recognizing the scent as one of his favorites. It was calming; quiet cold nights in a warm living room, late nights of work that wasn’t done alone. “Chamomile. Nice choice. I‘m consistently impressed with your collection, Natasha.”

She smiled again. “I do what I can.”


	12. Knowledge

Scientists liked to think they know everything, but it turns out those nerds are as easy to string along as anyone else. All of that intellect and they still refused to see what was sitting right in front of their faces. Banner, no matter how many breakthroughs he was making, was the worst of them all, a man who had been too weak to stand up in his own damn life and only seemed to show any sort of confidence when he was working. He spent the rest of the time looking like he’d rather blend in with the scenery than speak up; God did the man fulfill every stereotype of the spineless scientist.

And this was the man Betty loved, had been dating for years? It was pathetic.

There had been grumblings about showing their progress for a while, but in truth the whole damn thing wasn’t even at weapons application yet. Of course Banner didn’t understand that, couldn’t from how little he truly knew about the program. He looked at what they were doing with an arrogance that comes from thinking you are the smartest person in the room and was sure— _absolutely sure_ —that it could be tested. With a long string of technical words he had said in no uncertain terms that the gamma radiation would activate and stabilize the serum, producing the resistance to radiation he thought the military wanted. Too many damn words to get to the point, but with the growing interest in showing progress they decided to let Banner at it. Hell, the man was so sure it would work he set up the experiment to use himself as the test subject.

“They want to see what we’ve done and we don’t have time to screen possible subjects,” he had said. “It will be fine with me, though. We have it all worked out.”

No one wanted to argue with that in the face of a possible successful test, and those with the knowledge of the true purpose of the program had no interest in voicing any concerns they might have had lest the whole thing fall apart from internal disagreements. The military scientists in the program had checked and double checked the work and everyone agreed that Banner was brilliant (even when you hated everything else about him). There was no reason not to let the test go forward.

All of the equipment, an incomprehensible array of gleaming metal and white machinery, moved Banner into place with a careful slowness. They all watched from behind the glass partition, in their darkened control room, as Banner had the audacity to wink at Betty, which he still somehow managed to do in a pitiful way, with only the slightest twitch of a smile to go with it. They pressed the proper buttons, flipped the right switches, and the white room became tinted green. Danger flashed red in the control room, sparks flew from the machinery inside, and the green became all encompassing.

Banner had been a scientist. What he was now, a lumbering roaring _thing_ that shrugged off the soldier’s bullets as it sent him through the door, that crushed exploding machinery like it was made of tin foil, was something so much more. Even as Ross collapsed against Betty’s unconscious body in an attempt to defend her, his arm screaming with sharp pain and his mind horrified that this could be the end for them ( _let it get distracted by me,_ he thought, _leave her alone go after me_ ), some part of his mind clicked into a cold strategic place with the knowledge that he was staring at a weapon. A living, breathing, unspeakably powerful weapon.

If what Banner had made could turn a weak man like him into a weapon, what could it do to a soldier?


	13. Denial

_“Monster! You‘re some sort of monster! Freak!”_

Where did the man end and the monster begin? Most days he tried not to ask. He called him “Other” and treated him separate, made himself the keeper of a terrible thing that squirmed inside; an uncontrollable power made of rage, an accident brought on by his gullibility and arrogance. It was something he took responsibility for but not something—someone—he wanted to acknowledge as his own. They were connected by his anger and he knew that said more about him than he cared to admit; that was one of the places where the lines blurred and the image caught in mid-transformation showed you both the pained face of the man and the snarling glare of the monster.

Overhead the sky was black, thunder rolled, lightning cracked, and rained poured down. The air was humid and hot and all around was the scent of summer and wet pavement. But this was midtown Manhattan, and the natural scents of summer were dimmed by the smells of broken concrete, plaster, dust, and exhaust.

It always rained when they came for him.

Bruce struggled to remain conscious but his vision swam and his limbs felt a million miles away. There had been shouting, so much shouting. Missiles, explosions, gunfire. He had landed hard onto the sidewalk (sharp pain in the shins) and had tripped over his numb feet (by then less sharp and more dull), he remembered that. He remembered the feeling of the Other rumbling in the deep recesses of his mind but unable to push farther forward than that. There was tugging and pulling; he was being shaken back to life.

“Goddammit, get your fucking ass up, soldier! Don’t you do this to me! Where is she, where is she, what have you done with her?!”

It was a voice of nightmares, one of the two that frightened him more than the roar of his monster. His instincts screamed the danger at him, begged him to open his eyes, because this was so very _wrong_. The nightmare voice was speaking of her, and damn you if you let go now because _missing_ —

“Betty…where…?” His eyes refused to open, they weighed so much and the world felt like it was spinning beneath him as he was shaken. Then the shaking stopped and the world stopped with it, his stomach flipping, and his limbs still feeling far away. The still deadly tension radiated.

“Banner,” Ross’s voice was both close and far, filled with a quiet fury. “When you looked at her in that hospital bed with her broken jaw, tell me, did you feel like your father’s son?” Bruce felt himself hit the sidewalk with a removed thud. “You know where you belong. Now let me bring her home.”

And it took this, _this_ to force his eyes open, to stare at the old man with an unfocused glare. Here was the truth he had been denying every day since the accident, the reason he became a giant that lashed out at the world fueled by unparalleled rage. Bruce had spent his life being afraid, afraid of becoming his father, afraid of the anger and violence that he had shown them. He had been so afraid of it that…

…That he had become the monster his father always said he was.

No matter how much he separated them, no matter how the Other Guy’s thoughts and feelings felt like a living, breathing thing he couldn‘t fathom, Bruce was the source of it all. Without every single emotion he had ignored, had shoved aside because they weren‘t safe, there would be no Other Guy. It was all him. All his fault. Even when he tried to be good he became a monster.

“Don’t…know…” he muttered. Bruce didn’t know. He didn’t know where Betty was. He didn’t know where he belonged.

_“I’m not a monster, Dad! Please!”_

Denial had made it true.


	14. Wind

It had been a warm day in the city, but the night brought an undercurrent of cold. Beneath him the twinkling lights of the city stretched as far as the eye could see; its peacefulness was a lie, its noise drowned by the whipping of the helicopter’s blades. Down there people were being hurt, being killed, bright glowing fires raging because of a monster that for once wasn’t him but was still his.

_“We made this thing. All of us.”_

That was a lie, in his heart he believed that was a lie.

It was hard to stand at the edge, the air not only cold, but strong. He felt like he might fall away without trying, pushed right out by the force of it. Betty followed him, and when she spoke he had to work harder to hear her. There was anger in her movements, in the forcefulness she tugged at his sleeve, but her voice didn‘t hold it. Around them the wind whipped and her hair flew wild, a few strands obscuring her vision that she made no effort to push away.

“Bruce, stop! Stop! What are you doing? Think about this,” she said, and tugged at his sleeve. “You don’t even know if you’ll change. You don’t have to do this, please. This is insane!” Her voice cracked at the end, not hiding the desperation.

Betty Ross was the most beautiful person in the entire world in every sense of the word. Her mind had always been ahead of his in a lot of ways, with a brilliant and unfailing understanding that she never carried around with a shred of arrogance, just an unspoken confidence. She knew what she knew and didn’t have to prove that to you. She was a woman who could stare into your howling snarling fury, see the absolute worst part of you overcharged and thundering across the world and barely flinch. Betty could stare it down and it would pause, and that had to make her the bravest there was; a person who could see the worst and still think you worthwhile. She could be afraid but not let it control her, not let it stop her from what she needed to do.

In that instant his heart thudded and ached with the flash of a dream that had likely died the day of the accident. Despite everything, everything about him that was wrong and broken, they had found each other. The illusion that had helped move him forward, that had helped keep him running and hiding one step ahead, was the life that he hoped to have. With her. Family was a word he didn‘t care for, holding with it pain with only small bright spots, but with her it could have taken on a new meaning. It was a fool’s dream that if you could slay the monster you could find your home again, returning to some simple anonymous life.

They couldn’t hear them, but Bruce was sure there were screams in the streets below, people in pain because of what he had become. On the screen they’d seen—in a distorted digitized video—the soldiers fight, saw them armed with a bazooka, machine guns, the best the military had to offer, and that _thing_ had laughed. It was a surreal out of body experience watching its heavy crushing movements, another step beyond the nightmarish visions he saw of his own transformations. Bullets and missiles would not be enough, even those experimental weapons Bruce couldn’t so much as remember but feel as a wavering wall of sound wouldn’t be enough. This creature, a towering behemoth that almost resembled a skeleton put on outside the musculature, would continue to tear apart the city. Cars would become flattened or burst into flames, bullets would ricochet and innocent people would be caught in the crossfire, buildings wrecked, homes destroyed, lives destroyed.

No other choice, no other option. Deep inside him Bruce still felt that weight, a slumbering growling noise of a monster that now needed to be awakened. While there was no guarantee that this would work, that he would change in time, there was no way he couldn’t do this now. Down there, facing against the creature he knew was born from his own mistakes, was where he was needed…even if he never made it there.

Bruce glanced over his shoulder and felt Betty pull on his arm as he looked at the streets below. He looked back to her, felt the bindings straining against his wrists, and saw behind her blue eyes the dream that couldn’t be. Doing this now was the best he could do for them all, including her. It was all he had left to give. “Betty, I’ve got to try,” he replied, adding, “I’m sorry,” in a softer voice, almost drowned out by the droning of the helicopter.

Their lips met, a kiss that was both soft and strong, and felt like the end of a good dream. Bruce felt himself fall back, the feeling of the kiss still a ghost on his lips along with the warmth of Betty’s hand in his. He saw her, for the last time with his own eyes and not through the hazy half-recollection of his monster, her hand still reaching out for his, hair whipping in every direction, as she became small in his sight. Bruce felt the wind lash around him, felt the pressure and the panic of the freefall, and slammed his eyes shut, waiting for the change.

It didn’t come.

Figured that when he needed his monster it wouldn’t come running.

“Oh shi—”


	15. Order

You cannot tell a force of nature what to do (maybe if you’re a certain alien Norse god, but that’s besides the point). You cannot give it a determined look and say in a commanding voice where it needs to be and expect it to listen. A monster set to rampage, a creature made of a man’s pain and anger made manifest into a living thing cannot be given orders.

Unless you’re Captain America. Unless you’re the Avengers.

The miracle in that first instance, surrounded by the rubble and overturned blazing cars (a sight that is nothing new to him by a long shot), is that the Other Guy waits for the call. Huffing out air, hunched over and flexing his hands in anticipation he watched as the others received their tasks and set out to them. He did not hit them, he did not leap at the first visible threat ignoring all else around him. This had to be a sign, right? This had to be an indicator that they were moving towards a place where they did more good than harm; that making the choice to give it meaning had made a difference. Right?

Much later, after more missions with the Avengers, more chances proven that the Other Guy has the capacity to listen, even to speak, Bruce begins to feel unsettled by it. He listens, he follows orders, and he hits what they want him to hit. It is done because it is…Bruce thinks, the right thing to do. They are out there fighting what would seek to hurt others, rescuing people who are their friends. He listens to Captain America’s orders, follows them, because he—and the Other Guy—trusts him (and trust is a panic inducing thought all on its own). Again, both the man and the monster are making a choice, giving themselves a greater meaning. Of course he wonders if he can trust his own judgment on the entire matter; when he attempts to be good he becomes…the embodiment of everything he didn’t want to be. Is he decent enough to know where to use what he can do and defend instead of destroy? Can you truly turn something so vicious and angry into something worthwhile?

In his heart, Bruce is a scientist. He would have preferred to spend his life looking ahead, learning more about the world and the universe itself, understanding how it fits and works. As he lets the anger over that tipping point, letting it expand, pull and contort him painfully into something bigger than himself, he wonders: if you can make chaos respond to order, what does it make it? If you can make the monster fight for you what does it make him?


	16. Thanks

How strange was it that out of all the people in the world, one of the ones Bruce felt most thankful to was Tony Stark? Whenever he stopped to contemplate the idea, his mind whirred in place, unable to fully understand how the hell it had happened in the first place.

At first glance the man was unsuppressed swagger, arrogance, and snark (the last was fine, Bruce was well versed in that language). Everyone knew about him, knew how he had taken a terrible and traumatic experience and came out the other side with an arc reactor in his chest and a suit of armor. He turned away from weaponry and destruction and moved towards something better—

—And within the first minute of being formally introduced Tony Stark both complimented him and joked about the large green grenade in the room. He said it with the ease of someone who just did not care, who didn’t think for one second that the thing that lurked underneath Bruce’s skin was something he should be afraid of. Bruce hadn’t been sure if that was part of the Stark attitude that was also something everyone knew about, or if it was honest recklessness. Did the man think that because his ingenuity—an intelligence that was undeniable and backed up most of that arrogance—that because he had built himself a way to become a superhero out of tragedy that monsters no longer were a concern?

Right from the get go there was a certain—Bruce hated to say it but found every other word lacking—honesty Tony showed him. Poking him, offering him food, he had spent the entire time they worked on tracking the Tesseract trying to tell Bruce something, treating him like a person instead of a walking impending explosion. It had been frustrating to listen to; a man he had known all of a few hours, leveling a knowing glare at him through the transparent computer screen, telling him that not only did he know all about Bruce’s accident but that the hideous thing living inside him had saved his life for a reason. Later, idling on the shuddering old borrowed (never returned) motorcycle, all of it had come back, not just infuriating but also sobering.

Tony had believed in him, had expected him to join them in the battle against the Chitauri more than anyone else, and that trust had paid off. For months after the problem had been on Bruce, on him not understanding why, on him not wanting to believe it. After all that had happened…the thought of someone outright trusting even his worst parts was—okay, it was frightening. It was easier to see himself as a curiosity, a sarcastic scientist to play off of and poke at because knowing that anyone thought he was worthwhile…that, that was a fast track to disaster. A careening car over a cliff to violent disappointment. Pretty much what he considered his life by and large.

_“I’m no superhero, but I do not want any of you to get hurt again because of him.”_

_“I want to try at being a proper superhero instead of a basket case in a tin can. I want to stop putting everyone in danger because of the **stupid hunk of metal in my chest**.”_

Standing in the infirmary, still decked in his somewhat ridiculous uniform pants, bare feet and Clint’s borrowed damaged white jacket, Bruce worked. Tony was asleep, the adrenaline worn off, the unguarded manic honesty subsided. He stared at the tissue damage, the brutal shoddy experimentation done to understand and use his friend’s glowing heart and it clicked, his mind letting more pieces finally move into place. Open themselves up, go past the arrogance, the snark, the soft blue hum of the arc reactor, the quiet avoidance, the nervousness, and the furious green growth and Bruce realized they were more alike than he had ever thought about.


	17. Look

Eating out was a luxury, especially in places that required you to look like you hadn’t just found the clothes abandoned in the street. While Bruce enjoyed food, both in making and eating, it was never at the forefront of his mind. It was a necessity, an action that was required to keep going, no matter what unstoppable strength you might have underneath. Like many things, this attitude had shifted since joining the Avengers; Stark Tower’s kitchen was amazingly well stocked (giving him an opportunity to try out dishes that he never otherwise would have. Natasha had been insistent that they go out to this Italian restaurant, a fancy looking place down in Greenwich Village. It was a safe guess the place wasn’t five star, but anything greater than take out felt like being pushed into a gold plated manicured meal.

He decided it didn’t matter. What had started as some sort of way to get him outside (and the fact that Natasha had suggested Italian of all things didn’t go over his head) had become a welcoming dinner for Ms. Van Dyne—no, now she was Jan—into the Avengers. The timing of it had been spur of the moment, and Bruce guessed perhaps not the best for Jan (the redness in her eyes had been unmistakable, and if Bruce knew anything it was the pleasant face you put on over what sadness and anger was beneath), but there was something to be said for distracting yourself for a little while. And distracting was one word you could use to describe the Avengers.

They hadn’t been there very long when Steve arrived, and there was an audible hush as he walked up to their table. His charcoal pinstripe suit fit him perfectly, and his pointed shoes were polished into a gleaming shine. It was a contrast to everything they had seen him in before; the simple work out clothes, the plaid button down shirts and slacks, and the unmistakable red white and blue uniform. He wore it well, like he was made for it, but that was one of the disarming things about Steve; there was always some sort of underlying strength to him. Steve could be uncomfortable, bewildered and out of place, and yet still that sureness came shining through. He was who he was, and you had to work not to like him for it.

Natasha gave him a smile and a look of…Bruce would have guessed proud satisfaction if anything, while Jan gave him a tentative smile after whispering a surprised, “Oh. My.” Bruce smirked while Tony, well, he just stared with a look that suggested his flippant response files were missing and needed to be accessed again later.

The dinner itself went well, despite Tony’s lingering quietness, and Bruce was struck by the utter…normalcy of it, which made it all the more absurd. They were all _different_ —that was putting it lightly—a misfit assortment of people who had come together and now, more importantly, were seeming to stick together while adding to their ranks. By all accounts this was not supposed to work, not with him at the very least, and yet it _was_.

Overhead the light was soft golden and the Italian food smelled of late Friday nights and tasted like starchy savory home. While they were not all together (Clint arrived in spectacular fashion much later, while Thor had spent the evening with Jane and Peter at home with his aunt), those that were there welcomed Jan to the team with open arms. Bruce found it strange to be in that position, but important to be encouragingly honest when he looked at her and still saw that raw pain hiding underneath the surface. They were different, they were misfits, but somehow they were a group of people that he was finding himself more comfortable with than he could remember.

Really, that was worth celebrating.


	18. Summer

The cake was red, white, and blue; a white star stuck smack dab in the middle, smaller stars and stripes along the sides. It looked brighter outside on the balcony in the warm fading light somehow, a colorful punctuation point on an unexpectedly nice day.

“Happy birthday, Steve,” Bruce said as he placed the cake on the bench near by which was covered with stacks of stars-and-stripes plates. His mind recalled another summer birthday, another homemade cake made in a friend’s kitchen, and was struck by the feeling that was a memory from another man’s life. “…Uh, you do like raspberries, right?”

Steve laughed, and maybe turned a little pink, it was hard to see against the setting sun across the Manhattan skyline. “Oh. Oh, Doctor Banner. That’s just so…Yes. I love raspberries. And thank you. I don‘t think anyone‘s made me a cake since…well, it‘s been more than seventy years, let‘s just leave it at that.”

Captain America born on the 4th of July. It was so fitting you’d have to think it was a joke or some part of the carefully crafted persona for the Star Spangled Man (Bruce was pretty sure everyone had that song stuck in their heads after how many times it played on the television near by that day). But, the thing about Steve you picked up almost right off the bat was that he was genuine; he didn’t carefully craft himself to be who he was, he just was. It was refreshingly honest, if not a little intimidating.

Tony had long since given up attempting to char every bit of barbecue into an unrecognizable crisp, letting Clint take over the massive grill with the confidence of a chef who had done this more than a few times. The balcony’s sleek steel and glass took on deepening shadows as the bright orange on the horizon melted into purple and dark blue. It was a clear night but there would be no chance of seeing stars against the night lights of the city.

Together they ate, drank and talked with a companionable ease that every few minutes Bruce found himself with a nervous twinge that he was out of place. After the last lingering embers of the sunset had disappeared behind the skyscrapers and the sky was all a hazy dark blue Tony reappeared from inside the tower, carrying a beer in hand and a smile on his face.

“Okay, people, time for fireworks. Should be dark enough. If everybody wants to stand back and Parker, keep an eye on your lovely lady friend there—didn’t know you were bringing your sister—” He winked at Peter’s aunt, who laughed and clapped her hands together. “—we’re going to get this show on the road. JARVIS, if you would be so good.”

They all stood back as the display began, a loud, bright and flashy show in plenty of sparkling red, white and blues. A larger than life letter A exploded into the night sky, booming and then crackling before it seemed to melt out of sight. They stared in awe and amusement, pointing at the most impressive bursts. Tony sidled himself between Bruce and Steve, looking up at the fireworks with an appraising eye.

“Not bad,” he said.

The air was warm, permeated with the scents of barbecue sauce, charcoal and smoke; the beer in Bruce’s hand was slick and cool. Despite the loudness and brightness of the fireworks, he found himself able to handle it all with barely a twitch of discomfort. As they stood there, celebrating a birthday and a holiday, actions he had given up long ago in favor of survival, Bruce nodded.

No, not bad at all.


	19. Transformation

Burning. Every inch, every fiber of his being. Growing pains, the deep stabbing pain that reaches into the marrow of the bones, stretching and pulling, like going from a baby to a full grown adult and beyond in seconds. The world becomes washed in blurred green, a carefully constructed mental dam broken and an unstoppable deluge of pain and rage bursting forth. He screams, he’s never aware if he does every time, though he remembers after the first that time that when he returned to himself he could not stop screaming for eight hours. Such noise isn’t like him he’s—

“Such a quiet freak.”

Mike sneered at him from across the classroom, leaning against one of the black rubber covered lab tables. They had been lab partners for the entire last semester of biology and had barely said more than two sentences to each other. The class itself was easy to the point of boredom; Bruce was forced to endure that on top of great declarations like, “Hey, everyone, let me tell you about my awesome pancake breakfast because that is worth interrupting the class for.” If any of them had any interest in science, or learning at all, they didn’t show it. Bruce had done his best to drown them out, all of their stupid nonsense, and keep his mind on his calculations in his notebook. It never worked for very long.

A balled up piece of paper flew across the room. Sighing, Bruce picked up his notebook and let it bounce away. Mike smiled at that unpleasantly, his friends snickered.

“You wouldn’t be so tough without that notebook,” Mike said, crossing his arms, his unpleasant smile becoming a grimace.

Bruce adjusted his glasses and spared a sideways glance at the kids across the room. “I’d still have two hands and that would still be a piece of paper,” he replied, and bit his lip. That…probably should have been one of those replies he thought but didn’t vocalize.

As Mike’s grimace fell into a scowl, and he and his friends crossed the length of the classroom to stand in front of Bruce he knew he was right. It was just…why now? They had spent months next to each other working on the same lab projects together, and never had a problem, now the second Mike is at the other end of the room Bruce is a problem?

“I could get myself a bat if you want, Banner,” Mike said, leaning against the lab table with both hands in that unmistakable threatening way. “Hell, give me and the guys a few minutes and you and ugly—” he nodded at Bruce’s lab partner, a round faced guy named Max, too poor to afford the braces he needed— “over there would go right to the hospital.”

There was a long moment of silence. Mike’s friends continued to exist in a state of cruel mockery and impatience while Mike let that unpleasant smile again stretch across his thick face. They were all tall, taller than both Bruce and Max, and he was pretty sure they all spent gym class throwing dodge balls at the most painful places of other kids. Max only tried to turn his chair away a little bit, keeping his eyes on his work; he never grinned, never smiled, because when he did he was laughed at. Bruce got that, everyone punished you the second you were happy.

Bruce pursed his lips and then clenched his jaw. He pushed his chair back and turned to look Mike straight in the eye, or as near as he could get. “No, you leave him alone. Look, we—we don’t have a problem with you, Mike. Just take your friends back to the other side of the room and let’s leave it.”

POW.

His sight exploded into bright pain and Bruce spun into their table, doubling over as he hit it. Max stood up, his cheap plastic chair clattering against the linoleum floor. All of a sudden the lab’s florescent lights were far too bright. Max shook his head, backing himself away from the whole thing. “You made it worse,” he muttered. “All you did was make it worse.”

Mike yanked at Bruce’s collar, pulling him off the table. His friends laughed. “That’s what this crazy ass bastard does, right?” Another punch, this time to his stomach and Bruce crumpled forward. His glasses fell down the bridge of his nose and threatened to fall off. “You make everything worse, you twisted little—”

Monster. There is popping and ripping and tearing, the clothes become tattered, all made for a man so much smaller. So puny. So easily crushed. His ear splitting scream becomes a deep threatening roar that reverberates off the walls and ceiling. The burning and the physical pain subside, the rest remains. Thoughts do not come, only impulses, only the need to hurt back because there has been pain and it makes him furious. There is so much pain, and it all needs to stop.


	20. Sunset

What memories stuck, fresh and vivid even after the passage of time wore down others, was a mystery. Most remained as scars, the kind when picked at could manifest physical pain just as real as the day it occurred. Others remained as bright spots, moving snapshots that reminded Bruce that there were times when the world could be seen in full color, not just pale desaturated reds and greens. You think that the bright moments you remember at the big ones, the firsts of something great, or the biggest laugh, the best of highlight reels of your life. Bruce realized it didn’t work that way. What he remembered most were small things, things that seemed completely and utterly normal. They were events and actions that from the outside would seem most mundane, but they reminded him that some part of him was human. No matter how bad things got (and for him bad was an understatement) he could remember that not every memory was tinted through the vision of a monster, that some times had been worth it all.

Friday evening in mid September still felt remarkably like late August, only the air brought with it a cooler undercurrent and the daylight trickled away earlier and earlier. Free time was in short supply; it usually was, but when the new semester started up it became a precious commodity. They often worked through meals; Betty could power herself through on caffeine alone while Bruce tried to keep up. It was on Fridays that Bruce tended to remember eating an actual meal was probably a good idea, and would show up at Betty’s office, wearing that crooked half smile as he ran a hand through his hair. It didn’t matter they had known each other since college, there was always a part of him that couldn’t believe they were friends, let alone more than that. He liked to think that it helped him remember to never take their relationship for granted.

That Friday, the one he remembered, was warm with a slight breeze. It had been a clear and beautiful day, one they had spent most of inside working, but the last glowing embers of it remained as they walked to Stanley’s. Overhead the wispy cloud dotted sky melted into purples and blues as the sunset, brilliant and golden, clung to the edge of the horizon. A breeze, bringing with it the heat and familiar scents of tomatoes and bread of a meal in their near future, pushed a few strands of Betty’s dark hair into her face; she pushed it away and grinned.

“Why do we only remember to sit down to eat at the end of the week?”

Bruce shrugged. “It must have something to do with the weekend. Gives us five minutes to remember we don’t need to eat and grade papers at the same time.”

Her hand reached out and their fingers intertwined. “Excuse me? Who remembered last week?”

Betty’s hand was warm, her hands always seemed warm. Bruce’s mouth twitched into a small smile as he looked down at their hands. In the distance he heard a neighborhood dog bark. “You did. I’ve just…remembered more often?”

“Oh, so you’re keeping count.” She smirked.

He bit on his lip even as his smile grew larger. Stanley’s neon sign was within sight, flickering in the growing twilight. The bell on his front door jingled softly, and a group of friends laughed as they exited, the setting sun glinting blinding orange against the glass door. Their shadows stretched, though shorter than they had been during the summer nights. “Not exactly. It’s an educated guess.”

Betty smiled, the kind that made her blue eyes crinkle. “And I‘m going to make an educated guess you‘re going to get spaghetti again.”

“Amazing. It‘s like you know me.”

“A little bit,” she squeezed his hand, which he squeezed back on instinct.

None of the evening had been remarkable. They ate, joked, and talked with Stanley like so many of the weeks that came before and after and yet this one stood out to him always. Maybe it was the warm glow of the sunset, the breeze that brought with it all the scents he came to associate with home, or the way Betty had smiled in that genuine way that made him feel unbroken. Whatever it was, the memory stayed, warm and golden, and he was grateful for that.


	21. Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in this chapter in particular for child abuse, abuse and death. I attempted to do some careful editing to keep it from being terrible, but I would still advise caution for this one. Please feel free to move to the next chapter if you feel the need to.

“Take only what’s important and pack quickly,” his mother had said. When he asked where they were going she refused to answer, only telling him to hurry as she tossed clothes into her suitcase without even bothering to fold them. The band-aid on her forehead was still new; Dad had had another bad day two days before and Bruce had stupidly been trying to reassemble his erector set in the living room. Mom had stepped in, but the erector set now sat irreparably broken in the corner of his room, she had the band-aid on her forehead, and Bruce had a nasty bruise on his left arm he rubbed absently as he looked around the room and tried to decide what was important.

On top of the pale yellow sheets of his bed sat his constant nighttime companion, a stuffed animal gorilla. She’d never been named (though Bruce decided it was a she somewhere along the line, but couldn‘t remember when), and one of the eyes was coming loose, but she was definitely important. At night when he was alone, when the memory of the pain came up fresh as if it was happening all over again and his mother wasn‘t near, Gorilla was there, something soft and safe to wrap his small arms around until he found sleep again. If they were going away, and even in his eight year old mind he was able to grasp the feeling of this being a Big Thing, Gorilla would have to come.

Gently, he picked up the stuffed animal and placed her in the suitcase wedged between some brightly colored t-shirts that he had folded haphazardly.

His mother appeared in the doorway and the soft light of the afternoon sun streaming through his bedroom window made her glow. “Sweetheart, you need to hurry,” she said and there was that edge to her voice that made him uneasy but strangely hopeful in a way he could not articulate.

Bruce pushed a dark curl of his hair out of his face. “Mom, I dunno what else’s important.” He looked over to his bookshelf and tugged at the bottom of his red and black striped t-shirt. Bruce thought his books were important; they were worlds he could go to that were far away, where heroes fought with monsters and lived to tell the tale. They also taught him all sorts of things, and he found the ones on building and science were interesting, learning how it all fit together.

“No, Bruce, they’re too heavy,” she replied, seeing him eye the bookshelf. She sounded hurried but not unkind. Mom was never unkind. “Only take one if you have to and leave the rest of the room for your clothes.”

He nodded. “Okay,” he said and ended up picking only his very favorite book, and shoving it on top of all the clothes he could fit into the beaten up plum suitcase.

*         *           *          *

“No, Dad, please stop! I’ll be good! I’ll be good! Don’t—!”

“You don’t tell me what to do, you little monster!” His father’s voice was raw, more venomous than Bruce had ever heard. It had never mattered what Bruce did or said, he could never make that voice sound happy, or be good enough to earn even the slightest praise no matter how desperately he wanted it.

“And you!” he screamed at his mother, his fingers wrapped around her neck. “I’ll show you what happens when you try to leave!”

“Stop! You’re scaring—”

His father didn’t listen, he never did and never would. His face contorted into the most frightening scowl Bruce would ever see (even General Ross‘s scowls years later would take a distant second place). His little hands grabbed at his father’s charcoal slacks but it made no difference. His father’s movements became a blur, and there was a thick crack that Bruce would hear in the darkest, loneliest part of the night every year after.

The broken concrete of their driveway turned red, and Bruce let go of his father’s slacks, falling to his knees in front of his mother.

Her brown eyes were open, but he could not get her to see. He stroked her cheek, softly, whispering for her to come back until his father yanked him up by his bad arm and stared into him with wild, terrifying eyes. “You’re not going to tell anyone this, understand? No one is going to believe you and you’re not going to tell anyone. If you do, I swear I will do the same thing to you, you freak. Understand?”

Bruce didn’t speak. He jerked his head in what passed for a nod, his eyes going back to the still form of his mother. His father, whether he believed Bruce or just wanted to move onto taking care of the situation he never knew, released his grip, practically pushing the child to the ground. Their suitcases had broken open; her clothing, all rich jewel tones and soft fabrics, spilled out over the corners while Bruce’s Gorilla leaned half way out. The eye had fallen off.

He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t shout, though so much of his soul wanted to do that. But Bruce had stared into his father’s monstrous mad face and saw the worst of the world; all that was cruel, violent and unrestrained. He saw such overwhelming hate and wanted nothing more than to never see it, never be near it again.


	22. Thousand

“It stole my phone, Doctor Banner! Grabbed it right out of my hand and ran off with it!” The chair spun and all Bruce could see were Peter Parker’s lanky limbs sticking out in a blur.

“Wait, so you were about to check your phone and the dog jumped up and grabbed it out of your hands?” Bruce crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. Peter didn’t have an office so much as a storage closet that had been converted with a desk and ever spinning chair, though no one had the heart to tell him that. He was a smart kid, no matter how scattered he seemed at times, so Bruce guessed Peter already knew. It would be good to get him a real office, a place that didn’t have shelves of supplies and smelled faintly of nail polish remover. After everything Peter had done for the team already he deserved it.

Peter stopped spinning and the chair creaked, still moving for half a spin before springing back into place. He leaned his elbows on his desk and waved his hands, one mimicking a biting motion that swallowed the other hand. “CHOMP. Just like that! And I went running after it but it had—get this—an entire posse with it!”

“That’s a pack, Peter,” Bruce interrupted, raising his eyebrows.

“I know that, but that’s besides the point, there was a lot of them! Like a thousand! It—it—it was like this ring of thieving French dogs, and the leader was this sneaky phone stealing demon with jaws slobbering and shifty beady eyes—you know like that shifty eyed dog from the Simpsons?—and it lured me right into its trap with all his sticky pawed buddies!” If Peter had managed to take a breath during that Bruce hadn’t noticed. He continued to mimic the snapping jaws with his hands.

Bruce smiled, it was the small one that said both bemusement and that he was suppressing the urge to laugh. “Did you get your phone back?”

Peter leaned back in his chair, picking his elbows up and throwing his arms behind his head. He had some of the fastest reflexes Bruce had ever seen, no doubt in part of his early warning “spider sense,” but the kid’s movements still were loose, awkward and so very like a teenager. “No! It was dripping with all that slobber and all of those thousands—”

“Really.”

“—Yeah, okay, maybe more like ten, but it was still a lot. What was I supposed to do, fight dogs? Agent Barton and Thor were right there waiting for me. Plus, fighting dogs is…no. That’s wrong. No, no, so yeah, I just let him have it. That didn‘t stop them from chasing and yelling at me with that angry _‘bark bark, I‘m gonna steal your pants too!_ ’ bark.” Peter groaned, letting his head thunk against the desk, his face disappearing behind his impossible hair. When he spoke again his voice was muffled. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain that to Aunt May.”

Bruce shook his head, letting his head bump against the door frame. “I’d say tell her the truth, even though it sounds like the equivalent of the _‘dog ate my homework.’_ ” He paused. “I don’t know how you do it, Peter. You manage to get mobbed no matter what country you’re in.”

He didn’t pick up his head from the desk, but Peter’s shoulders moved and Bruce guessed he was shrugging. “I’m special like that, Doctor Banner.”


	23. Outside

Banner’s the one who likes it indoors; the small (but not _too_ small or he’d begin to panic) four walled spaces that are quiet and out of the way. Quiet is important, but the small spaces are as puny and flimsy as he is. They are confining, _Banner_ is confining. He needs the space, needs to stretch and stand, letting his massive weight make the ground beneath him shudder.

Hammer Man is a creature of the outside, like him. He hovers in the air, colorful and shining, and the storms follow behind. His scent reeks of ozone, fresh rain, and power. Thunder booms in his presence, loud and painful. There is nothing puny about him, for he is a warrior compact and distilled in his floating form, yet there is humanity there. It comes through his eyes, concern and worry like his. They did not start from a good place; he hit so Hulk hit back, kept hitting, and when they fought side by side he hit him once more…he did not want Hammer Man to forget who he had dealt with. No one stronger, not even shining gods.

They had been fighting, outside, in this large empty field because there is nothing else he can do, nothing he is allowed to do. Cannot help Tony, cannot help Betty. While Banner paces in his puny rooms and hates himself because there are parts of him that want to let go, Hulk wants to act. He wants to find the silver metal masked man and tear and rip him apart because they at least know where that is. He wants his friend back.

Hulk’s hair stands on end, electricity crackles and arcs over his muscles and a cloud of dust from his deafening landing obscures Hammer Man from his sight for a moment. This fight is pointless, even he knows that now, and it makes him want to shatter the silver masked man even more. Thunder booms close by and he can smell the rain before it falls, his mind going back to the flames and Betty’s closed eyes.

He looks up and grimaces at Hammer Man, both pain and fear in equal measure. He wants to help, he wants them back, he wants to hurt who hurt those that matter to him. “WON’T LET HULK HELP,” he rumbles.

There is a hesitant look in the warrior’s face, as if the words Hulk spoke are too foreign and unexpected, but he does not attack. He hovers above Hulk, the darkened lightning streaked sky framing him. As the recognition dawns on his face, there is a deeper understanding.

They are both creatures of the outside, both warriors who fight with all that they have been and all that they will ever be. As Hammer Man…Thor…smiles at him, knows that what Hulk wants is to help his friend while all others hold him back, he finds those very last vestiges of anger at the god and their fight subside. It is not this warrior he is angry with and it would be better to save it for the one who deserves it.

For the silver masked metal man who has taken his friend, he will save it all.


	24. Winter

When he was very young Bruce had been fond of winter. There was a clear quietness to the season; crisp pale blue skies giving way early to long nights, safety and warmth curled in a bed surrounded by blankets that smelled faintly of detergent, cedar, and nutmeg. In the dark of those long nights, once his fourth Christmas came and life began to chip away at his love for the season (much as it did for anything he loved), Bruce wanted to believe he could hide there. Let the still coldness slow down the pain, let the layers of blankets and clothes provide a cushion of protection, let that darkness keep him from the hateful glare.

They didn’t, yet he told those lies again and again, desperate to believe. Desperate to not let go of what he loved.

Winters were different in Modesto; rain instead of snow, cool instead of cold, light grey days that became long dark grey nights. His old familiar lies didn’t fit here; it was never cold enough and the pain that followed him now were memories and the fear of what he might become.

Aunt Susan tried, attempting comfort with epithets like “honey” and speaking to him in that soft cautious voice that was usually reserved for when you had the worst kind of flu. She had gone around her house ( _their_ house, Bruce’s mind always tried to remind him but it never quite stuck) when he first arrived, removing every picture of his father that she could find. One photo, chopped in half, of his family sat on the mantle above the fireplace. His mother’s grin was bright and open, her arm wrapped around a five year old version of himself with unruly curly dark hair and glasses that were just a touch too big. Encroaching the photo were disembodied hands, one curled around his mother’s shoulder, the other mere inches from Bruce’s elbow. Cut out but never gone.

But Aunt Susan tried, so Bruce tried for her.

He hadn’t known that she had been intercepting the letters for years, another way Aunt Susan had been trying to do right by him. Most of them arrived around meaningful dates (always on _that_ day, like clockwork), the rest in sporadic bursts. She had been good at watching the mail, good at remembering the days that were most likely to come with one of the letters. But, there was one time, one dreary winter between Bruce’s fourteenth birthday and Christmas, when she hadn’t been fast enough.

“Bruce, honey, let me have that,” she said, moving to take the envelope from his hands. They trembled slightly and she hesitated.

 _Bellmore Psychiatric Institute_ was scrawled in the upper left hand corner in all caps…except for the I’s. It was unmistakably _his_ handwriting. Bruce stared at it, his hands trembling but his grip like steel. “It’s…it’s for me,” he said, his voice far more still and quiet than he felt.

Aunt Susan held her hand out, her fingertips grazing the edge of the envelope. “You don’t need to read it.” Her voice had taken on that softness, the one that said you were dealing with someone about to shatter into a million pieces. In that moment Bruce wasn’t sure whether he loved her or was furious with her for that. “Let it go, okay?”

When she tugged at the envelope he pulled it closer to his chest. “But—but it’s mine,” he said, and he hated the childish squeak in his voice. Bruce didn’t even want to read it, not really…no, that wasn’t entirely true. There was a lot of him that wanted to read it, wanted to tear open the cheap soggy envelope and read and analyze the entire letter word for word. He wanted sincerity, he wanted apologies, he wanted some tiny bit of satisfaction. Hell, he wanted to see if there was deserved suffering, a fraction of the pain that had been given to him. He wanted to see that the world had become grey for more than himself. He wanted—

The envelope drooped as his grip on it relaxed, his hair falling into his eyes.

What he wanted would never happen.

Bruce grimaced, every muscle in his jaw and neck freezing and tensing, his grip tightening again. The envelope crumpled in his hands, and with a strangled pained noise he threw it across the hallway into the living room. It rolled to a stop in front of the fireplace. Aunt Susan stared at him with an expression that approached pity and god he could _not_ handle pity, didn’t want it, didn’t need it.

“I’ll be in my room,” he muttered, heading up the stairs.

What he wanted would never happen. And he was too old for comforting lies a child told himself wrapped in blankets that smelled of home.


	25. Tremble

When he returned to the world it was cold. Always. It never mattered where he was or the weather, he was always cold. There was a deep ache in his muscles, right down into the bone, and the sensation of phantom limbs, his body telling him he was supposed to be so much larger. His skin itched everywhere, his mind attempting to pull itself out of the green fog it had been enveloped in. There was a moment of recollection but it felt like the remnants of a nightmare; emotions, far away sounds and flashes of images. Minutes pass and he remained on the ground, the ache in his muscles turning everything to jelly. When he tried to move he—

Trembles. They are small (puny) and as soon as they see him they all shake. Fear and anger in equal measure, both so familiar to him he can almost smell it radiating off the men with guns. They fire, the shots blindingly bright in the darkness and he feels the anger bubbling and overflowing within him, a massive clenching tension that wants nothing more than to strike out and make them stop. Stop being afraid, stop stop stop—

The rage becomes unbearable and all the metal around him becomes a weapon he can use to make them go away. He wants to hit them, he wants them to tremble because he’s the strong one, he wants them to run and leave him alone. The metal screeches as he pulls it from where it is bolted to the floor, screws pop, there is hissing from the container and liquid sprays everywhere. It is green, a reflection of all that he is, and with a roar he throws the massive crumpled metal thing at them. They scatter and he reaches for more metal, something he can use to get away from here, away from them, because while they shake they do not leave.

He doesn’t know what it is he grabs, except that it is big and metal and the stone wall shatters when they collide. Now he smells those tangible emotions of fear and anger mixed with dust and plaster. Beyond that he can smell the wet pavement, and thick but open air. His steps are thunderous, more dust kicks up in his wake, and when he is clear of the place his powerful legs push him away—

The sound of rushing water felt far away, the stone underneath slick, sharp, and cold. Not as cold as Bruce felt, though. Again he tried to move, this time with some success. He grasped at the tattered stretched out remains of his pants and cast a pained glance skyward; there was no telling where he was now except that it was wet and green. With unsteady shaking steps he fumbled down the rocks, hoping to find a path, a road, anything that would lead him back to a populated area. Time for hiding had run out and now all that was left was the distant hope that he could stay one step ahead long enough to find a cure.


	26. Diamond

It was not supposed to work, _they_ weren’t supposed to work. When they met it had taken him a week of strangled, pathetic attempts to just say ‘hi’ and Bruce had been sure that made him more than a little sad and creepy. He knew he was terrible with people by and large; his relationship with Monica had been intense--too much for him too fast--which had made it brief. When he opened himself up he was afraid of what he’d find, afraid that what was lurking underneath all of the quiet he’d constructed was hideous…monstrous. He was afraid they would take one look at his core and hate him for it, and he’d know that he deserved that. The fact that he kept trying, that the entire week still culminated in a nervous little greeting, baffled him.

The fact that Betty had responded positively, had kept talking to him, baffled him even more. And that years later they were still together, that they had each shown each other their unguarded cores and hadn’t run the other way, amazed him.

Bruce had thought about the question a few times, and had wondered if Betty had thought about it as well. Every time he had been close, the words forming on the tip of his tongue, another excuse would pull him back and his courage would walk right out the door. First it was better to wait until after they had finally graduated, the next time it was when they had settled in, and after that it was work kept them too busy to think about it. They were all excuses to cover up that once again Bruce was really just afraid. Again.

He’d had enough. Their relationship _did_ work, even with their imperfect unguarded cores, with the times they couldn’t agree and the little idiosyncrasies that could be as annoying as they could be endearing. Even with all the nightmares that followed them and would always follow them they worked together in all the ways that were important. Betty was important.

So, he allowed himself one more excuse, one final reason to wait. The military wanted visible results for the project, they wanted to point and justify the money they had spent, the manpower that had going into something so “cutting edge” as they called it. When it was over, when the project resulted in the new brilliant defense of the lives of soldiers, when it was time to shake each others’ hands for a job well done, Bruce would ask. There would be that right moment, a shining euphoric moment of accomplishment when it would just fit them both. If he didn’t do it then, he wasn’t sure if he ever could.


	27. Letters

Sent February 7th, 2006 from a public terminal in Dayton, Ohio:

_Betty,_

_I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened. Something went wrong with the pulse, that’s as far as I can tell now. Everything’s in fragments, but I saw how much I hurt you, I know it went horribly. If I could have stayed, I would have. I wish I could be more specific but I can’t. Not now. Please, Betty, I need help. Whatever this is, I need to fix it. Cure it. I need to get it out of me so they can’t do what they want. Then I can come back home._

_It is so much to ask but I need your help once you‘ve healed. I can be where you need, somewhere out of the way. Somewhere they can’t find._

_I would understand if you didn’t forgive me for what happened, though. It must be so painful. I am sorry, Betty._

_Be well._

_Love, Bruce_

Out of all the letters Bruce wrote over the years (and he admitted to himself it was a pathetically large amount) that one was the only one he sent. It was barely a month after the accident, and for reasons he could never articulate, he had run back to Dayton. Its winters were the cold ones he remembered, the ones that came with a mixture of fear and nostalgia, but he had run into it unprepared. His jacket was too thin, all of his possessions held inside a fraying canvas backpack, and there was no house for him to seek shelter in.

The house still stood, of course; the name on the thin metal mailbox outside the front stoop now bearing an unfamiliar name. While the front lawn was glittering in inches of white snow the driveway that had once been cracked ( _crack_ , he winced) was paved over. Smooth. Dark contrasting the wintry lawn.

It hadn’t been home in decades. Staring at it only recalled ghosts that were already far too tangible in his dreaming hours. Now with the thing that lurked in the dark parts of his mind, bubbling up under the skin in ways that confused him (and frightened him which only made it worse, made the thing rise up faster), he needed to stay away. Away from the ghosts that twisted and curled like the puffs of breath in the bitter air, away from his memories.

He had made one final stop before leaving town. It was brief, more ghosts, more vague recollections ( _crack again_ , he winced) and an emptiness that reminded him his life was once again grey. Grey, with sparks of red and blurred green. Bruce hadn’t been able to stand more than a few minutes in front of the worn stone grave, the cross an image he recalled with perfect clarity in his nightmares.

The rest of the letters in the years that followed were scribbled on whatever paper he had handy and thrown out as soon as they were finished. Every letter was to Betty, every one of them contained an apology. Their brief reunion had only given him new reasons to apologize, new ways that he had gone in and messed up her life. _I’m sorry_ would never be enough. The letters became more like confessions, one sided conversations of everything he wanted to say to her but was sure he never would get the chance.

Joining the Avengers hadn’t changed this; Bruce wrote the letters now in a state of the art gleaming lab instead of a dirt covered flat, and the downtime meant the letters came with greater frequency. They became recounts of his exploits, rambling stories of their times together, all beginning and ending with that same tired apology. He crumpled every last one, each time swearing it would be the last, wanting to move on. Wanting to be better. The last one he wrote came once they had returned from Latveria, a rescue mission that had been successful but still left him and the Other Guy with a strong urge to pull apart “Doctor” Doom (he wasn’t really a doctor as far as Bruce knew, and honestly his name was von _Doom_ ). It was good to be back, good to know Tony was all right, but Betty…she was still gone. Still in a place unknown doing who knew what, still possibly in danger, and Bruce couldn’t stop worrying. His inability to help find her only made it worse.

So, he wrote, hunched over his clean desk in the white gleaming florescent lab:

_Betty,_

_Please be okay. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, please be okay. You’re brilliant and I need to believe you did this to get away from the General. I keep telling myself that had to be it, he was being overbearing again and you needed space. It doesn’t stop me from being concerned. You’ve managed to disappear from everyone’s notice and someone in SHIELD has to know where you are. They have to. I just don’t understand why Fury would do this. There’s so much manipulation, so many angles_

_Rambling. Stop. You’re going to be found, Natasha is going to find you, you’re going to be fine and ~~I will have no idea what to do after that~~ will be happy just to know that. Part of me hopes that you’re angry with me, or better than that, that you’re beyond that and don’t care either way. Indifference, that’s it. Because how many times have I ruined your life, our lives? That’s what I do. Ruin good things. It’s only a matter of time before I do it to the others as well. ~~I’m my father’s son, after all~~. _

_I just want you to be all right and happy in whatever you do, Betty. I want you to live your life. Being with you meant the world to me._

_Be safe, Betty. Wherever you are._

_Bruce_

_Note: Why don’t you just get a journal? You’re clinging. It isn’t right. She deserves better. You’re at the best you’ve been and you’re still an incoherent mess. Natasha will find her, she’ll be okay, and you leave it at that._

Betty appeared so soon after, the best impossible dream made real. Face to face with her, frozen in place in the Tower’s kitchen as they cleaned up from a bit of needed fun, the words of the last crumpled letter echoed in his mind.

_Being with you meant the world to me._

As they held onto each other, years of distance closed in mere seconds, a dead life brought back with a single spark once again, Bruce told her so. He told her what mattered, what he might never get the chance to say again.


	28. Promise

“Not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me by a long shot.”

Tony’s attention was already back on the holographic scans of the so-called tracking device, flicking through them at a casual pace. It was an awful truth, but the kind you tried to walk past as fast as you could. The kind you kept that casual tone and face around because going deeper meant really facing it. Giving them voice made them more real, made you exposed in ways that were difficult to deal with.

An echo of a growl from the Other Guy reverberated throughout Bruce’s body, visceral, frustrated and pushing against him. He never knew what to do when they agreed, when that want to strike back ( _avenge_ , his sarcastic inner bastard said) was a conscious thing both man and monster shared. It was a reminder that there was more of him in his green half than he ever wanted to face, and that for all the rage and destructive fury that side had, Bruce still managed to have more. The prospect had always made him sick, but in that moment he found he…didn’t quite care.

He ran his thumb across his calloused fingers, letting the growl rumble in his mind and subside. “Sorry for bringing up bad memories. I was just--I was concerned.”

“Don’t worry about it.” A read out flicked by then Tony replaced it with another; the gears and circuitry outlined in glowing colors that reflected dimly in the workshop. “They’ll come whether you bring em up or not. I appreciate your concern, Bruce, I really do, but I’m a big boy and I’m dealing with it.”

“Yeah, I guess they do,” Bruce sighed. They were always there, like your unguarded core, and it didn’t take words to have them surface. It struck him that what he feared the most Tony had already faced and coming out the other side as in tact as he did was a damn miracle. There would always be people that saw them only as weapons and things, as components and parts to strap down, dissect, disassemble and remake in ways they could control. He wanted nothing more than to stop that from happening to Tony again, he wanted the chance to be there to prevent it. “Okay, not doubting that you can. Grown man and all that. All I mean is--I don’t know, I’m pretty terrible with this.”

He pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his noise. Bruce _was_ terrible at this, but he had to try. He had to let that guard down and allow some genuine honesty come through because they had been through enough, saved each others‘ lives enough, that Tony deserved that. “I think what I mean is I’m here if you need me.”

Promises Bruce avoided like the plague; they were truths that were meant to be greater and when they inevitably broke it tore at precious parts of you you wanted to leave intact. They were for people who didn’t have to struggle with life and death on a weekly basis. They were for people who had homes to go back to. But here, Bruce realized, even without using the word, he was making a promise. Because it mattered, because even people like them needed to believe they could do that for each other. It was awkwardly worded--what he thought he really meant was: _“I wouldn’t mind letting the Other Guy tear through anyone who wants to hurt you like that again because you were never afraid of me. Because you shouldn’t have to go through that ever. Because you’ve been a better friend to me than I ever deserve and the only thing you ever asked of me was to stick around. The next person to try will have to go through him--me.”_

Tony stopped, the read out hovering in place, and looked up at Bruce. It was that wide eyed honestly surprised look Bruce didn‘t know how to react to, past the snark and that persona Tony seemed to wear like another suit. “I…uh…thanks. You’re, um. You’re a good friend. To me.” Tony coughed. “Better than I deserve.”

Bruce smiled. “I don’t know. Not many people would do what you’ve done for me, and by not many I mean almost none. I’d, uh, say you deserve a good friend for that.”


	29. Simple

Tony had called his room grim (whether that was an honest assessment or pure snark Bruce hadn’t had the patience at the time to figure out), Natasha called it minimalistic, Clint thought it needed more purple, but Bruce hadn’t thought about it much at all. Not since before the accident had he thought about places in terms of _his_ , not even the little flat in Brazil or the cabin in British Columbia. All that was his, all that he felt a right to claim, fit in his worn duffle bag that still sat half packed underneath his bed.

The room was the same as when he had moved into Stark Tower months before; bare grey walls that bore the tiniest hint of green in them (a surprisingly subtle joke, he thought), a full sized bed with a dark wooden headboard and plain cream and grey sheets. It was plush, comfortable, and soft; more than Bruce had been used to in who knew how long. A desk in matching dark wood sat in the opposite corner with a rolling chair. All of the furniture was sturdy, well made, and seemed expensive, despite the how little of it there was and how bare everyone thought the room was. A closet on the far end of the room, bigger than some of the places he’d stayed over the years, looked empty even when filled with as much clothing that he was willing to hang up. Bruce had to admit it wasn’t much--most of his clothes had belonged in the bag at all times--but they all looked small, wrinkled, and out of place hanging there. The couple of extra shirts and pairs of pants he’d found in there when he moved in had been unexpected; that Tony had considered him at all still had felt foreign.

Considering a place his, a static location that would be there every time he returned, was dangerous. It could lead to complacency, and the moment he considered it somewhere that was remotely _safe_ that would be the moment it was over. There would be a day where the risk of having him there would be too much, either for him or for them, or perhaps they would tire of the man-monster with a metric ton of issues bringing everyone down (if there was one thing Bruce knew he was good at, it was being a downer). Most of his nightmares, twitching and muttering on the too comfortable bed or slumped over the desk in his lab, were a jumbled mess of bad memories but some…some were the fractured promise of the worst he expected to come. The day when the anger became too much and green became his entire world; there would be no recognition between friend and foe. When the rage subsided instead of green there would be nothing but red, still and motionless and _why had he ever thought he could be better?_

A single picture frame sat on the nightstand next to his bed. Inside was a hand drawn picture by Steve (and there was something profound and amazing in that side of him) of Betty and Bruce, a moment of their reunion captured in a way that was more beautiful and more alive than a photo could achieve; years of separation and pain washed over with raw hopeful relief rendered in pencil. It sat there in defiance of his doubts, an effort to believe that no matter what happened he would not become unwelcome, that as much of a danger he could become they would be there to help him.

It was a simple thing. One small personal item in a big empty room, but it sat declaring its importance to all who could see it. Betty was worth that, and so were the others. He would never be safe, his room would never be safe, but maybe there could be comfort. Maybe that was enough.


	30. Future

_No future for you._

When was the moment you gave up on it? Can you pick a precise moment?

It couldn’t have been the accident, the day when everything you had ever denied about yourself, had shoved and compressed into a container too small to hold forever, burst forth in an unexpected violent emerald deluge. It couldn’t have been at Betty’s bedside, her body so still and broken and _all your fault_. For the next five years you fled, running from yourself as much as the General and his men, but there was that yellowing fragile newspaper clipping you carried with you. You stared at her smiling face before every attempt at a cure, spurred on by the hope it would work and you would go back to her. Back home. That was a shining light to hold in the long nights, and boy were there many long nights. You believed then, believed in her, believed you could rid yourself of it--him--because it was a mistake.

You didn’t know how much of you was in that mistake.

That was it, wasn’t it? Knee deep in snow with a clear twinkling night sky above, the weight of every bit of destruction wrought by your monster, every life ended by his impossibly massive hands, pulling you down into the cold. That was when it shriveled and blew away in a bitter wind. Plans were for those with a future; they were for people, not shells for monsters.

Those hours were the worst. Cold and wet, collapsed into the deep snow, throat hoarse from shouting and sobbing, head pounding from it all. There was no way forward, there was no way back; stuck between. Just what you are, right? Not man, not weapon. It took you until well into the morning to pull yourself back to your feet, to drag yourself down that mountain, through the heavy snow covered forest, and take that next step forward.

_No future for you._

You dedicated yourself to others, you kept the anger close so you could see it. Plans only went as far as where you would need to escape next, what procedure your patients needed. These were immediate concerns and nothing was permanent. There was some satisfaction in that, every life saved a slap in the face to the terrible thing you really were. It was removed, distant, but the best you would get. Your life was not meant to be yours, not anymore. Your wants, your dreams, they were irrelevant. Others needed you, and what you would do would never be enough. Not enough to make up for your mistakes, not enough to save them all.

It was the best you could do with your existence.

And now Betty is staring at you, her grin as bright as every memory you ever had of her. There is a warm dry breeze that rustles the trees and the sunlight filters green through the leaves. You can’t be rid of the green but right now you don’t mind. She has seen you at your worst, unguarded and weak and also looming furious and destructive, and she has no intention of leaving. She knows what kind of man you are, beneath the calm, beneath the nervousness, the glowing core of a broken man who has pulled himself up because there was no alternative. People should run screaming from you, from what you have done (from what you half remember you have done before the monster even reared his head), from what you _could_ do. Betty does not, and you love her with all your heart for it. For that and for all that she is.

So, like a man who hasn’t had a future in years, you blurt it out, unprepared. The ring you had bought is years lost, and why didn’t you think about this at least an hour ahead of time?

Betty says yes and you feel that glowing broken core fill with a kind of happiness that is so raw, so real, and so very foreign. Now your grin matches hers and your life feels like yours again.

_~~No~~ future for you. _

Plans are for people, people who have a future. The Avengers gave you that, gave you this, and you will be damned if you run from that.


End file.
